


Reckoning

by scorose



Series: Take Me to Outer Space [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, F/M, Gryffindor, Gryffindor Tower, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Era, Hogwarts Great Hall, Snogging, Weasley twins, grumpy george
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26880100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorose/pseuds/scorose
Summary: But Maggie wasn’t acting any of the ways George had anticipated; while she continued to smile at him in the corridors as though he’d made a joke that amused her, she never approached him, trying to act familiar; she’d not made any attempts to sidle up to grasp his hand, or run up to him and kiss him (as he had done to her, he reminded himself); or, and thank Merlin she hadn’t, tried to talk to him about what they “were” now - about what the kiss “meant.” A snog was a snog, after all; George was just used to girls he and Fred had tried to casually snog in the past acting rather barmy about it.George gets teased about snogging Maggie. And then he can’t help but do it again.
Relationships: George Weasley/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Take Me to Outer Space [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1961131
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25





	Reckoning

**Author's Note:**

> **Konusi** requested another part of this and **knaps_docx** played the devil on my shoulder and encouraged me to churn this out. I’m working on a part 3 and 4 so this will likely become a little series of one shots.

As term came to a close, the drama of the school year - dementors, Sirius Black, even rumours of a not-so-friendly variety about Professor Lupin - seemed to fade, and the few days left of term, now that exams were finished at least, seemed rather peaceful and quiet. _Too peaceful,_ George mused to himself, finishing off his pudding. He glanced at his twin; Fred seemed to have the same thought, glowering around at the Great Hall. Now that they’d sat their OWLs and term was drawing to a close, things felt almost… morose. 

“You lot look glum,” Angelina Johnson informed them, glaring accusingly as she finished off her pumpkin juice. Fred and George shared a look before shrugging in unison. 

“We’ve just taken the most ‘important’ exams of our lives,” Fred started. 

“And now we’re feeling properly put-out,” George concluded. 

“Don’t you feel the stress just fading in waves, though?!” Angelina demanded. George felt his eyebrows hike; he knew better than to look at Fred, as they’d both laugh and only irritate Angelina further, as she’d taken her OWLs quite seriously and been very cross with everyone in recent weeks - as had most of their year. Fred and George shared the philosophy that whilst exams were worth an effort, they were a test of what you’d learned; the twins either knew the material or they didn’t, and there was no point in losing sleep over it. Angie and Alicia Spinnet had spent the first half of dinner discussing exam questions they might have answered differently. George didn’t see the point in worrying over it now. 

“What’s done is done,” Fred informed Angelina, seeming to echo George’s thoughts in a way only he could. 

“I’m personally no more or less stressed,” George agreed. “It’s you lot who’ve been acting all barmy.”

“Ought to throw a party, to celebrate the end to your whinging,” Fred suggested, and Lee Jordan turned to him at once as though summoned, his face lighting up at the sound of the word “party”. 

“I’m sure George would enjoy that,” Angelina said after a moment, and George found four pairs of eyes staring at him knowingly. George cleared his throat, taking a long drink of his pumpkin juice to avoid answering. 

George’s friends had done nothing but take the mickey out of him ever since the bet he’d taken with Fred to walk up to a Gryffindor girl at their quidditch victory party and snog her without more than a simple greeting; it turned out the girl he’d chosen, a fourth year named Maggie Byrne, was more than capable at rising to the challenge, and had snogged George quite soundly. He knew any of their needling directed at him was borne of sheer jealousy; especially coming from Fred, as he’d been trying to get with Angelina for ages, to no avail, and she had spent the entire night of the party in question talking to Lee, which had only served to make him grouchy. As for George…

“How is Byrne, by the way?” Lee asked. 

George sighed. “I wouldn’t know,” he answered honestly. “We don’t talk.” And that, at least, was true, though it was as specific as he felt like being at the moment.

George and Maggie truly had not shared any words in the month following their very public make-out, save saying “hi” approximately three times when passing in the corridor. It unnerved George, to some extent; prior to kissing Maggie, he’d recognized her face in passing, but not spared much of a thought to the fact that she even existed. Now he saw her everywhere: mealtime in the Great Hall, lounging by the fireplace in the common room with Katie Bell, passing him on his way to Charms class. Whether or not she spoke a greeting, she never avoided him, choosing instead to smile at him in a cheeky, _knowing_ sort of way. Whenever he saw her, George felt like a bucket of cold water had been dumped over him - and he wasn’t used to girls flustering him, _at all_. He and Fred perhaps, at times, exhibited an air of overconfidence. Most people found it funny and charming. But something about the way Maggie looked at him made him feel like he was in a dream, one borderlining a nightmare, where he’d showed up to class late in nothing but his pants. The way her eyes lit up when she smiled at him made it seem as if she were enjoying her own private joke. In a way, maybe she was, he’d reasoned; he’d initially called her by the wrong name - _Mandy_ , damn Fred - and then proceeded to snog her in front of half of Gryffindor house. But she wasn’t behaving at all like he’d expected, even prepared himself for her to act. 

George had kissed a few girls before - he by no means considered himself an expert, merely capable - and he’d never had a girlfriend. Usually, if he fancied a girl and tried to snog her, she would insinuate that they were a couple and behave in all sorts of horrid ways, trying to hold hands and spend every moment together, and get jealous if he didn’t want to. Calling him their _boyfriend_. Which all seemed rather annoying. Fred and George had grand schemes - they’d gotten rather good at the magic necessary for pranking, and were in the process of inventing their own version of some of the gags they’d seen at Zonko’s. They played quidditch, they enjoyed their group of friends. They’d agreed there wasn’t room for a clingy little tagalong, and so the twins had remained single for the entirety of their Hogwarts careers thus far. But Maggie wasn’t acting any of the ways George had anticipated; while she continued to smile at him in the corridors as though he’d made a joke that amused her, she never approached him, trying to act familiar; she’d not made any attempts to sidle up to grasp his hand, or run up to him and kiss him (as he had done to her, he reminded himself); or, and thank Merlin she hadn’t, tried to talk to him about what they “were” now - about what the kiss “meant.” A snog was a snog, after all; George was just used to girls he and Fred had tried to casually snog in the past acting rather barmy about it. 

“Are you quite well?” Alicia asked, snapping her fingers several times in quick succession in George’s face; he blinked. The Gryffindor table reappeared before him, and with it his friends, all staring at him in varying states of concern. 

“Daydreaming about her now, are you?” Fred asked, shit-eating grin on his face. “When’s the wedding?”

“Bro, cut it out,” he snapped, beginning to get irritated; he knew that Fred had a better sense than anyone else of how much he was bothered by them all taking the piss. To his credit, Fred shut his mouth, though he shot Angelina a meaningful look George chose to ignore.

“Testy,” Lee quipped. “Trouble in paradise?”

“What is it with you lot?” George asked exasperatedly, rubbing at his eyes. “More questions than my OWL exams! _Look_ ,” he added, shooting a dark look around at them, “I’m only going to say it once. She was an incredible snog, and I have no regrets for doing it, but she hasn’t spoken to me since - and it’s not bad, she wasn’t mad or anything - but it was just a snog, and nothing more, so just drop it, alright?” Angelina raised her hands as if in surrender, now sharing a look with Alicia, who pointedly returned her gaze to the bit of ice cream left in her bowl. Lee and Fred, on either side of George, fell silent, looking everywhere else.

“Circe,” George swore, rising to his feet. He clambered inelegantly off the bench and strode from the Great Hall, uncharacteristically fuming. 

He wasn’t sure why everyone’s needling was getting to him - why he was _letting it_ , in fact. George, Fred, and Lee’s relationship was based entirely around taking the piss out of each other all the time. He knew exactly why they’d chosen to focus in on this one point: they realized they’d hit a nerve. It amused them all to no end how badly it was bothering him, their talk of Maggie. 

_Was_ it bothering him?

 _Why_?

George shoved his hands in his pockets as he trudged towards Gryffindor Tower, his initial anger upon storming out of the Hall ebbing. What was it truly that bugged him so much about it all, that Maggie had kept to herself? It wasn’t as if she’d been unkind; she’d been no less friendly than before he kissed her, truth be told. He’d really only just begun paying her any kind of mind - perhaps that was it, he told himself, that he’d just become hyper-aware of her.

He was grateful, after all, she didn’t think he’d become her boyfriend overnight, right? She’d have been unbearable, following him around with big dewy eyes acting mushy, drawing their initials in love hearts and writing “Mrs. Maggie Weasley” in the margins of her essays. He hated it when girls did those sorts of things. But Maggie _hadn’t_. In fact, he’d begun to suspect she’d done a good job of talking up his snogging prowess, as several girls had since taken more notice of him. _And_ Fred (as no one could tell them apart), and for that his twin should be grateful, and not a great stupid git. 

As if on cue, as George walked past a blonde seventh year Hufflepuff, she squeaked, “Hi!” and turned bright red, grinning at him until he was well past her. He actually turned his head and watched her over his shoulder to see how long it would take her to quit batting her eyelashes at him and turn back around, and in the process he walked smack into Kenneth Towler, who apologized quickly and shrunk away from him. Towler had been at the receiving end of far too many pranks, mostly recently bulbadox powder in his pyjamas for giving the twins detention; George was aware his bad mood was radiating off him, likely putting him on high alert. 

George exhaled slowly through his nose, then. Bugger. This was so unlike him, to be in this foul of a mood; he and Fred prided themselves on being easygoing and a source of cheer for everyone around them. He was a master of cracking jokes and getting laughs. Not being cross and irritable. He dithered in the hallway for a moment, debating going back to the Great Hall and apologizing to his friends for their row, but he was nearly to Gryffindor Tower, and so he continued on, cursing Maggie Byrne and her incredibly snoggable lips causing mayhem in his life. 

And so, naturally, when he threw himself down on the loveseat across from the fire to await his friends’ return, a familiar face grinned at him from an armchair nearby. 

“Hello George,” she greeted brightly before returning to the parchment she was scribbling on. George stared.

“ _Bloody hell_ ,” he swore under his breath, sinking back into the couch. 

“Hmm?” Maggie asked absently; her feather quill moved rapidly and she didn’t take her eyes off the parchment.

He watched her for a moment, the way her brow scrunched in concentration, the way her damnable lips mouthed the words to her paper as she spelled them out. George felt his pulse tick upward. 

“What’s your problem?” he finally blurted out, feeling a rush of hot embarrassment as the words left his mouth. Maggie’s eyes were on him, searching, eyebrow ticked up. He cast a quick glance about the common room; most students hadn’t yet returned from dinner, and there were only a couple people milling around. He returned his attention to Maggie, who was corking her ink; George scooted forward a bit and rested his elbows on his knees, his folded hands dangling. 

There was a beat. “Problem?” Maggie finally repeated, looking so annoyingly calm, which made George feel all the more frazzled. 

“Yeah, you…” He ran his hand through his hair, feeling it stand on end. “You keep saying hi to me in the corridor and smiling and you haven’t tried to come with me to Hogsmeade or sit with me at meals or tried to talk to my friends, or, or…” George trailed off, feeling rather foolish. Maggie looked as if she were trying very hard to suppress a smile. “You didn’t call me your boyfriend?” he said, and it came out like a question. 

“Did you want me to tell people you were my boyfriend?” Maggie asked, and she was giving George that look again, secret amusement, like she could see right through him. 

“Well, no,” George said, shoulders sagging. 

“Did you… want me to do _any_ of those things, actually?” she continued, smirking a bit as she rolled up the letter she’d been writing. 

“No,” George repeated, the back of his neck hot. 

She grinned at him. “Well, then. That’s that.”

“Right. Erm.” George felt like all the wind had gone out of his sails.

“You’ve gotten yourself all worked up, haven’t you?” she said, voice sounding rather amused, as she set her things on the small table by her chair and stood. She crossed to stand before George, hovering over him, their knees bumping. 

So Maggie wasn’t trying to be his girlfriend. At all. 

And he was okay with that.

Totally.

“You look like you’re puzzling over something,” Maggie said. George sat up then, to full height; Maggie was short enough that they were nearly eye-level now. “Don’t hurt yourself,” she quipped, voice soft. 

“D’you remember,” he said after a moment, trying his best not to sound over-eager, “what you said to me? Last time, I mean, after we -”

“After the celebratory snogging, you mean?” Maggie supplied, smirking. 

George grinned in spite of himself. “Yes, that.”

“I believe I told you to come find me, should the urge strike you again.” She looked like she was biting back a smile; her eyes danced with something that made George’s blood rush pleasantly. 

“Well, seeing as it’s end of term and all -” George ran a nervous hand through his hair again, messing it up further. “And,” he added wryly, “seeing as I seem to have gone a bit mad -”

Maggie had closed the distance betweenthem before George could finish, shutting him up with the press of her lips against his; stepping between his knees, she wound her fingers into his messy locks and tugged, and George’s blood thrummed in his veins. He quite liked this angle, he mused absently, his hands falling to Maggie’s rounded hips; she was still standing and therefore slightly taller than him, and he let her have full control as she tilted his head to deepen the kiss. George sighed as her tongue slid against his, delighting at the small moan she let out at the sensation. He wrapped his arms fully around her waist, bringing her close to his chest so that no space remained between them. His hands slowly drifted up her back, clutching at the soft, thin material of her tee shirt. George nipped playfully at Maggie’s lower lip, and she moaned softly, a pleasant sound that went straight to George’s groin. 

“Well, this is cosy!”

Merlin’s saggy left bollock. 

George broke away from Maggie and sighed deeply, a weary sort of state overcoming him. Maggie pressed her forehead against his, much like last time, soft giggles wracking her tiny frame. 

“Maybe we need to find somewhere more private, if we’re to keep meeting like this,” she told him in an undertone, and George let his eyes open slowly; the sight of her grinning, pink-tinged face filled his vision before he turned to look at his traitorous brother and Lee, standing over them and wearing identical evil grins.

“Quite pleased with yourselves, then?” George asked, trying to keep his tone light despite his annoyance. Maggie took a step back from him, letting her hands drop to his shoulders, which she massaged lightly with her fingertips; George held on to her hips, not ready to let go of her just yet. 

“Not clearly as pleased as you seem to be,” Fred replied pointedly, staring rather obviously at George’s lap; he fidgeted uncomfortably. 

“Thank you for the interruption, lads,” George said, voice more forceful, “but if you wouldn’t mind -”

“No, no, of _course_ , we’ll leave you to it,” Fred said generously with a shrug, gesturing with his hand as if to say “get on with it.”

“Seems a bit happier now, doesn’t he?” Lee asked Fred mischievously. 

“Oh, loads,” Fred agreed as they turned away, making sure he spoke over his shoulder as the two headed to the staircase, so as to be heard clearly. “He was in quite a sulk, but look at him now! Right as rain.”

George sighed and looked back to Maggie apologetically. She was grinning at him, looking like the cat that got the canary. “You seem quite pleased with yourself,” he commented, the back of his neck hot. 

“Oh, I am,” she assured him with a wink. She pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Flattering to know I’ve worked you into a… right state.” She pressed a second, lingering kiss against his cheekbone. “What was it you said?” she whispered against his ear, kissing the soft skin just below it. “That you’d gone… ‘quite mad’?”

“Uh,” George said dumbly. As Maggie’s lips danced down his neck he felt his head nodding unconsciously. She could ask him for any thing in the world and he would agree to it. He was putty in her hands. 

“Have you slipped me something?” he asked after a beat. Maggie’s smirking face reappeared in his line of vision.

“No,” she chirped simply, turning to plop herself into his lap, arms hooked around his neck. “But that’s quite flattering of you,” she added, winking. 

Hmm. He rested a hand on her thigh, studying her for a moment. The desperate sort of need he felt for her was confusing, and he was tired of thinking on it for the day. 

“I need to pack,” Maggie said suddenly, running one hand down George’s chest. She leaned forward and planted a lingering kiss on his lips. “See you around?” she said softly as she pulled away, and there was a flash of vulnerability on her face that was gone in a second; George wondered if he had imagined it. 

“Yeah,” he said, voice husky. He cleared his throat as she made a move to rise to her feet again. “Yeah,” he tried again, “absolutely, see you.”

Maggie beamed at him. She reached down to give his hand a quick squeeze before heading towards the stairs where Fred and Lee had disappeared moments before, feeling, confusedly, rather full and rather empty all at once. 


End file.
